Record 4G data sharing at Glastonbury 2017

Revellers at Glastonbury Festival used a whopping 54 terabytes of data via EE’s 4G network, more than double the amount of last year’s event

Glastonbury Festival has broken records to become the most shared live event of 2017 to date with a massive 54 terabytes of data used across the five day event.

EE, the official technology and communications partner, analysed how the network was used across the Festival, and found that this year beat all previous records as recent development of video applications such as Facebook Live, Snapchat Stories and Instagram Stories drove massive amounts of data usage on the 4G network. Over nine terabytes of this data was used for uploading content, up from five terabytes last year, as fans shared more pictures and videos of their Glastonbury experiences than ever before.

This year’s Festival at Worthy Farm saw data usage increase by 116% compared to last year. The 54 terabytes of data used across the 900 acre site is equivalent to 560 million Instagram selfies, 5.6 million minutes (or 10.6 years) of Facebook Live video streaming, 13.5 million downloads of Sunday’s Pyramid Stage headliner Ed Sheeran’s ‘Shape of You’ and almost 850,000 downloads of his latest studio album, ‘Divide’.

Research conducted before the festival revealed that 42% of festival-goers have previously lost their tent, an experience which no doubt contributed to 48,000 map location pins dropped via the official Glastonbury app from EE, 20% more than in 2016. The app was accessed a total of 5.9 million times during the festival as 175,000 users accessed it an average of 33 times each. Tracks from artists playing at Glastonbury Festival were listened to over 430,000 times thanks to new Apple Music integration and the most popular day to do this was Friday as people planned their Festival itinerary.

BBC Music coverage was streamed via the app 33,600 times. The Pyramid Stage was the most popular stage with 14,300 streams via the app across the Festival, however the most popular performance was from the John Peel Stage at 5pm on Sunday when The Killers descended for a secret set.

EE once again installed the world’s largest and most powerful temporary 4G network on site to meet the data demands of customers at Glastonbury. This year also saw a permanent mast installed on site as part of EE’s ambition to increase 4G coverage across the UK, reaching 95% of UK landmass by 2020.

Mat Sears, director of communications and sponsorship at EE said: “Once again Glastonbury firmly cements itself as one of the biggest and most exciting music events on the planet, and people want to share their experiences when they’re there. We do everything to ensure our 4G network can handle that demand; 54 terabytes of data is an extraordinary amount, but with video applications like Facebook Live, Instagram Stories and Snapchat Stories in the palm of every festival-goer’s hand, we can only see this number increasing at each event. This year, as part of our ambition to cover 95% of the UK landmass with 4G, we’ve installed a permanent mast on site to keep the area around Worthy Farm connected all year round.”

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